1 Sep 2010

Four Israeli citizens shot dead on highway

9:18 pm on 1 September 2010

Four Israeli citizens have been killed in a gun attack in the West Bank.

The shooting comes ahead of a White House summit in the United States, relaunching Middle East peace talks.

The BBC reports the attack took place near the city of Hebron after dark on Highway 60, a busy route used by both Palestinians and Jewish settlers.

The victims - two men and two women, one of whom was pregnant - were reportedly shot at from a passing vehicle.

Video footage showed a white estate car standing at an angle on the side of the road, its windows shot out and its doors riddled with bullet holes. Officials say all the victims were from the Beit Haggai settlement.

The military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, says it carried out the "heroic operation".

A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says security forces have been ordered to "act without diplomatic limitations in order to catch the murderers".

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad also condemned the attack, saying it went "against Palestinian interests".

It was the first fatal shooting in the West Bank since mid-June, when a police officer was killed, and the most lethal attack in the West Bank in four years.

Mr Netanyahu has arrived in Washington for a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.